A month had passed, during which Eline had been living a life of
semi-lethargy, of languid indifference, at the house of her uncle in
the Avenue Louise at Brussels. Her cough was still very troublesome,
but she felt herself comparatively at ease in her surroundings. Elise,
though she chattered somewhat, seemed rather to like her; and Uncle
Daniel, though he was somewhat cold in his studied politeness, was very
amiable also. Sometimes, indeed, a suspicion rose to her mind that they
shammed as every one in the Hague had shammed, but she would not stop
to analyze this doubt; she was satisfied to allow her brain to be
gradually enveloped by the lethargic indifference which was more and
more becoming a part of her very being.
Quite unexpectedly one day Uncle Daniel received a letter from Vincent
Vere from New York. They were not in the habit of corresponding, and
uncle was somewhat surprised. Eline, whose correspondence with her
cousin had not been of very long duration, now that his name sounded so
unexpectedly in her ears felt her interest in him revive; she was very
anxious to know what the contents of his letter might be. Perhaps he
asked for money.
But in this Eline was mistaken. Vincent asked for no money, nor even
for a recommendation or any help whatever. He simply wrote that he
intended to take a trip to Europe with his friend Lawrence St. Clare,
and they would visit Brussels. This letter roused Eline somewhat from
her mental lethargy. She called to mind how Vincent, languid and weak,
had reclined on her sofa in his Turkish dressing-gown, and how she had
tended him. With this memory the thought of Otto became mingled, and
with nervous agitation her fingers played around the black enamelled
locket of her chain. Had she not fancied that Vincent loved her and
that she loved him? Were any of those feelings now still remaining in
her heart? No, those feelings were gone—vanished like birds that had
flown away. Uncle and Elise talked a little about Vincent, and then
remained silent; but Eline, though she said nothing, thought a great
deal about him and his American friend.
After a week or two Uncle Daniel received a second letter from Vincent,
this time dated from Paris. In a few days the two young men arrived,
and they remained to dinner. Uncle and Elise out of politeness asked
them to make their stay in the house, but St. Clare refused—they had
already taken their rooms at the Hôtel des Flandres.
Vincent was not at all changed in his appearance and his movements, and
Eline all at once remarked, when both of them were standing beside each
other, and she saw her face reflected in the glass, how greatly she had
aged. He in his elegant, gentlemanly attire was the same as he had been
two years ago. His face even, beside her own yellow, emaciated
features, seemed to her healthier than ever she had seen it before. She
in her black lace, a material which she now constantly wore, with her
drooping shoulders and her sombre, lack-lustre eyes, seemed a mere
wreck of her former sparkling youth. Lawrence St. Clare made a very
agreeable impression both on Eline and on Elise. With her ideas of a
Yankee, Eline had rather fancied him somewhat boorish and rough—perhaps
chewing, swearing, and eternally drinking whisky—and she was very
agreeably surprised by his winning, easy manner. Tall, and of a
powerful frame, with his full-grown beard, which fell upon his bosom, a
certain pride gleaming from his eyes, not the pride of vanity, but one
that denoted power and strength of will. Although formerly Eline had
only now and then heard Vincent drop a word about St. Clare, it seemed
to her now as though she had known him ever so long. His frank smile,
his soft but penetrating eyes, charmed her and aroused her from her
lethargy, and it suddenly struck her, when her glance went round the
table, what a peaceful, calm, healthful truth beamed from him, by the
side of which the studied politeness of her uncle, the airy
effervescence of Elise, the misty melancholy of Vincent and of herself,
seemed but vain, hollow hypocrisy and unhealthy sham. After dinner they
took coffee in the large salon, and Eline felt herself contented in St.
Clare’s company, and inwardly hoped that none of her other
acquaintances would come and disturb the harmony. Yet she had not much
conversation with St. Clare. Elise took him in tow altogether, asking
him hundreds of questions about New York, Philadelphia, and other
places. He answered her in French, and spoke slowly with a foreign
accent, which charmed Eline. Vincent took both her hands in his and
looked at her attentively. He was grateful to her for what she had one
day done for him, and something like pity filled him now.
“I am rather disappointed in you, Elly,” said he, as they sat down in
the balcony. “You must try and get a little stouter; do you hear?”
She laughed a little, and the tip of her little shoe moved about
nervously among the soft white rugs.
“It is nothing at all,” said she. “I have not felt at all so unwell
lately. I have been much worse than this, and I am very glad to see you
once more, very glad indeed. You know I always rather liked you.”
She gave him her hand and he pressed it, and drew his fauteuil a little
closer to her.
“And what do you think of Lawrence?” he asked; “do you like him?”
“Yes, I believe he is a very good fellow, is he not?”
“He is the only man whom I have ever known upon whom one can depend.
There is no one in the world in whom I have any confidence—no, no
one—not even in you, nor in myself; but him—him I trust. What funny
French he speaks, eh?”
“He speaks it very nicely,” answered Eline.
“You have no idea what he would do for any one to whom he takes,”
Vincent continued. “If I told you what he has done for me, you would
not believe me. It is not every one whom I should like to tell what he
has forced me to accept, and even when I tell you about it I certainly
feel a bit ashamed. You must know that in New York I was very ill
indeed, in fact, all but dying. At that time I had a situation in a
house of business with which he is financially connected. Well, he took
me into his own house and tended me almost with as much care as you
did. I really do not understand how I have deserved his friendship, and
I do not know how I can repay. Still, I would do anything for him. If
now there is a grain of goodness in me at all, it is his influence that
has produced it. It was he who kept my place open for me while I was
ill, but a little while ago he decided to do a little travelling. He
did not know much about Europe, and he declared that my situation was
really too hard for me. In a word, he invited me to accompany him. I
refused at first, because already I was under such obligations to him,
but he forced me, and at last I yielded. With the coming winter he
intends to go to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and next summer he will
wander about the south of Europe. You know I have always been fond of
change, and have careered about a good deal myself, so no doubt I shall
be of some service to him as a guide, but I have never travelled in
such a style as this before. Wherever we go we have the pick of
everything.”
He paused, somewhat tired of his long whispering.
“Has he so much sympathy for you?” said Eline softly. “How curious! I
do not know him, of course; but I should say that his character is
entirely in contrast with yours.”
“So it is. You are right. Perhaps it is for that very reason that he
likes me; at all events, he is always declaring that I am much better
than others think me, and than I even think myself.”
“Perhaps he finds you interesting as Elise finds me,” said Eline, with
an involuntary sly little laugh. But now that she saw St. Clare
approaching, she felt some self-reproach, as though she had wronged
him. How could she compare the proud, manly truth that beamed from him
with Elise’s airy coldness?
Elise was very busy serving out her liqueurs, and she asked Vincent
whether he drank Kirsch or Curaçao, or whether he perhaps preferred
cognac. Vincent sat down by the fire, beside her and Uncle Daniel,
while St. Clare seated himself by the window next to Eline.
“And you are the nice little cousin, then, of whom Vincent has told me
so much? The little cousin who nursed him so well?” he asked with a
smile, as he placed his hands in his pockets, and with his clear, frank
eyes looked penetratingly into Eline’s.
“Yes, I am the cousin who nursed him,” she answered in French. She
spoke very good English, but his French pleased her, so that she did
not ask him whether he preferred speaking English.
“That was at the Hague, was it not?”
“Yes, at the Hague. He was then staying at my brother-in-law’s.”
“And you were also staying with your brother-in-law, were you not?”
It seemed as if he were trying to pump her a little; but the manner in
which he did it had so little of indiscretion about it and so much of
interest that she did not feel hurt.
“Yes,” she answered. “Did Vincent tell you so?”
“Yes, Vincent often spoke to me about you.”
His words gave her the impression that he knew a great deal about her
life. After her flight from Betsy’s house she had written Vincent, and
no doubt St. Clare knew of it.
“And you have travelled a good deal, have you not?” he continued.
“Yes, with uncle and aunt. You also think of travelling, do you not?”
“Yes, as far as Russia next winter.”
Both were silent for a moment. It seemed to Eline as if they had much
to say to each other, and did not know where to start. To her it seemed
as if she had long known him, and now it appeared too that he knew her.
They were no longer strangers to each other.
“Do you care very much for Vincent?” she asked.
“I like him very much. I feel much sympathy and pity for him. If his
health had been more robust he would have made his mark. In him there
is much energy and elasticity, and his views are very broad, but his
physical weakness prevents him from giving his mind to any one thing
and bringing it to completion. Most people misunderstand Vincent. They
think him indolent, capricious, selfish; and they will not acknowledge
that the explanation of it all is to be found in the fact that he is
weak and ill. I defy the greatest and the best of us to be active and
determined to turn his gifts and talents to good use if he is half
dying with weakness.”
This was a light in which she had never viewed Vincent. The only thing
she could say was that she had felt an unaccountable sympathy for him.
“Yes, I think you are right,” she said, after a short pause. “But do
you not think that such a long journey will fatigue him too much?
Russia, in the winter?”
“Oh, no, not at all; the cold climate is good for his temperament, and
he need not fatigue himself—there is no work for him to do; as for mere
railway travelling, he is used to it. He need only wrap himself up in
his furs and lie back in his carriage. That is all.”
From his words she suspected, as she had suspected from her
conversation with Vincent, that St. Clare was in the habit of
surrounding him with every possible comfort and luxury.
“I must say I think you are rather kind-hearted,” she could not help
remarking.
He looked at her for a moment in some surprise.
“What makes you think of that all at once?” he asked laughing.
“I don’t know,” she answered, and she blushed and laughed a little.
“One cannot help getting certain impressions about people. Maybe I’m
mistaken.”
He raised his hands with a deprecatory motion. She felt that in her
last words there was just a shade of coquettishness, and now that she
had spoken them it irritated her.
“You said just now something about energy and activity,” she resumed,
“and you believe that when one is ill one ought to be excused for
showing no such energy and activity?”
“Of course. What do you mean?”
In his manner there was something penetrating, something that went ever
straight to its object, and it confused her somewhat. Had it been
Vincent, she would very soon have plunged into some more or less misty
philosophical discussion, and lost herself in a maze of sentences thin
and filmy as cloudlets of steam—discussions in which neither of them
knew what they were really aiming at. But St. Clare threw her entirely
off her qui vive with his “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she answered with much indecision, “whether you would not
even be readier to forgive one who had passed through great grief, that
lack of energy and activity, than—you would forgive Vincent, who has
only been ill.”
He looked at her fixedly for a moment.
“Yes, I should, that is, if he had tried to be energetic and had failed
in the attempt; not otherwise, not if he had allowed himself, without
an effort, to be dragged along by the force of circumstances with the
simple reflection that one cannot fight against destiny. Vincent has
some of that fatalism, and there is nothing that is so unnerving as
that. Life would degenerate into a moral lethargy if every one did so,
and simply sat down with folded hands and thought, ‘I cannot help it,
come what may.’”
Her thoughts wandered a little. In fact, she did not know what she
thought. And she, had she had any energy? Had she allowed herself to be
dragged along by the force of circumstances? She did not know. His
strength of will, his determination, oppressed and crushed her, and
arrested the flow of her thoughts.
“But if that person had gone through much suffering, if he had
suffered, especially with remorse, at what he once had done?” she
whispered almost imploringly, with a moist glitter in her eyes, and her
little foot wandered nervously along the rug, her fingers clutched at
her black locket. His glance softened, filling with tenderness and
pity.
“In that case—yes, then I should forgive him all,” he whispered, with a
merciful assurance.
But his last words completely unnerved and abashed her. It suddenly
seemed to her as if she had entirely exposed herself, as if she had
said things which she should not have said, and yet it seemed as if the
strength failed her to withdraw herself now that she had said so much
as that.
After that day St. Clare and Vincent stayed away for about a week, and
Eline began to long for their return. When they came again it was the
day before New Year’s Eve, and Elise invited both for the following
day, when she was giving a big soirée.
The following evening, about half-past nine, the guests arrived. Uncle
Daniel and Elise courteously welcomed their somewhat loosely-picked-up
acquaintances. The young men of the club, the count, the actor, the
dueller and his blonde wife, were the first to make their appearance;
and after that Eline saw them pass in review before their host and
hostess, and a strange review it was. The gentlemen with something
artificial or Bohemian about them, the ladies with much too big
diamonds, and in faded silken trains. She did not feel herself at home
at all in this circle, and yet she felt amused by these strange folk,
who wandered about the crowded salons, the light from the candles in
the Venetian chandelier glinting strangely over all that antique
bronze, that antique china, that antique furniture. And there was a
variety about the guests that charmed her. Eline withdrew herself a
little when she saw St. Clare and Vincent approach. They were in
evening dress, and it struck her that there was something distingué
about them both. But after they had greeted uncle and Elise, they did
not seem to observe her among the noisy groups by which they were
surrounded, and Eline felt herself quite forsaken, although a little
old lady, wrinkled and brown as a nut, with little red plumes in her
hair, eagerly conversed with her about painters and sculptors. The old
lady affected to be a great patron of struggling artists.
“I suppose it is an artistic soirée this evening?” she asked with
blinking eyes.
“I believe it is,” answered Eline, with growing irritation.
“You sing, do you not?”
“Oh, no! I do not sing any more. The doctor has forbidden me to sing.”
“I suppose you intended to go on the stage?”
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
Some gentlemen came forward and bowed to the old lady, and she
introduced them to Eline. They were very talented artists. Musicians,
actors, painters, misunderstood geniuses all of them. The little old
lady overwhelmed Eline with operas, poems, panoramas which they had
written, created, and painted; their fame would ere long resound
throughout the world, for she would protect them.
Eline felt as if all those misunderstood geniuses were hemming her in.
Things began to shimmer and dance before her eyes, and it was a relief
when she saw St. Clare coming towards her once more.
“You are so surrounded,” he laughed softly, “one can scarcely
penetrate.”
Eline puckered up her little mouth contemptuously.
“Let us move aside a little. There is more room there,” she lisped.
She made her escape deftly from the circle of the geniuses, and with a
sigh sank down on a settee. Nervously her fingers played about the dull
gold beads that covered her low-necked corsage of black satin as with a
glistening ray.
“Oh, those people do bore me,” she said with light disdain. “What sort
of time did you spend in Ghent and in Bruges? Come, tell me something
about it.”
He remained standing beside her, and told her a little of his trip.
Here and there little groups formed themselves. The footman served wine
and refreshments.
“But what is to happen this evening, I wonder?” asked St. Clare with
curiosity, as he suddenly broke off his conversation.
Elise was standing, all amiability, writhing herself into all sorts of
bows and curtseys before the count, and people looked round at them and
whispered. The count seemed bashful, and made some excuses.
“No, don’t disappoint me, pray,” Elise was heard to say in a beseeching
tone.
“I suppose she is asking him to recite something, and he is shy,”
laughed Eline.
Eline was right. Elise cast a glance of triumph in the direction of
some of the ladies, and the count, with a movement as if he could not
help it, assumed an attitude and coughed. He would recite an epic poem,
Pizarro’s account of the conquest of Mexico, of Montezuma, and the
Aztecs.
A silence ensued, tempered with a low whispering. The stanzas rolled in
thundering tones over the heads of the guests with a harsh rumbling of
r’s.
Vincent, from another corner of the room, nodded at Eline archly. The
count began to shout louder and louder.
“Magnificent! don’t you think so?” asked the little old lady with the
red plumes, who had once more come back to Eline.
Eline nodded approvingly, but here and there a cough was heard, and
despairing faces were to be seen all over the room. The whispering,
too, grew a little louder.
“Patience and resignation,” Eline said to St. Clare with a smile.
He smiled in return, and she no longer found the immense poem so
unbearably boring now that he stood by her side. When the count’s last
stanza had died away a sort of electric movement began to be manifest
among the erstwhile motionless groups. They laughed and they talked and
they pushed one another. Some ladies were expressing their thanks to
the count with a great show of rapture.
“Could we not devise some protection against his next attack?” asked
St. Clare laughing.
“We shall be freer in the conservatory,” said Eline.
With some trouble they threaded their way to the little conservatory.
There were only two little groups—two old gentlemen seated at the table
covered with empty wine-glasses, and a little woman in active
conversation with a young man. There prevailed a soft balsamic odour
which permeated as with a breath from the tropics the palms and the
Vanilla plants and the orchids that were crowded together in rich
profusion. Outside a snowstorm was showering around its flakes of downy
white. They had scarcely sat down before they heard some chords struck
on the piano in the adjoining room. The actor, a bass, was about to
sing a duet with the fair-haired jeweller’s wife. St. Clare and Eline
could see them standing by the piano, their figures reflected in the
mirrors of the conservatory, while one of the misunderstood composers
was to accompany them.
“I had no idea that she sang,” Eline exclaimed in surprise. “La bonne
surprise! it’s really getting amusing, but don’t stop talking.”
A blush rose to her cheek, and something of her former sparkling
fascination came back to her. Now and then she lifted her champagne
glass to her lips. In close attention she listened to his stories. He
spoke so well. Yonder the high shrieks of the soprano and the low
growling of the bass intermingled with overpowering if somewhat
ludicrous effect. The conservatory gradually filled with little groups
who were making their escape from the drawing-room. Vincent came to
join St. Clare and Eline.
“Je ne dérange pas?” asked he.
“Par exemple!” cried Eline.
It seemed as if the three of them had found themselves at some public
fête. They scarcely knew one among all those curious people, and they
amused themselves by laughing a little at them. The two old gentlemen’s
collection of empty wine-glasses seemed to have grown larger and
larger, and under the shady leaves of a banana the young man could be
seen with his arm furtively encircling the waist of the little woman.
In the other corner, where some glasses had just been broken, Vincent
recognized some one, who posed as a Russian prince, engaged in
boisterous chat with two circus-riders, and he could not understand how
they could have been admitted even to Uncle Daniel’s drawing-room.
“Oh, they must have entered through a back door. I’m sure Elise cannot
know that they are here,” laughed Eline.
In the salon the programme was proceeding. They sang, they recited,
both serious and comic pieces, but the stillness of admiration grew
less and less. In the conservatory the Russian prince ran after the
circus-riders, and tried to embrace them; and the two old gentlemen all
at once broke out in a terribly angry dispute. The young couple had
disappeared.
“I should advise you to return a little closer to your uncle and aunt.
The company is certainly getting rather mixed here,” said St. Clare to
Eline.
Vincent had left them. Eline rose a little anxiously, and St. Clare
followed her. But in the salon Elise was surrounded by a very noisy
group, of which the ladies smoked cigarettes and spilt more champagne
on their dresses than they drank. St. Clare led Eline to the terrace.
His eyes sparkled and his lips twitched nervously as his glance fell on
the group by which Elise was surrounded.
“How did you really get here?” he suddenly asked Eline in a tone of
dissatisfaction which he could not hide. “How is it possible that I
could have met you here?”
She looked at him in astonishment.
“I ask you how it is possible that I could have found you here? You are
certainly not in proper company.”
She began to see his meaning, and started at the boldness of his
question.
“Not in proper company,” she slowly repeated. “May I remind you that I
am at the house of my uncle and aunt?”
“I know that. But your uncle and aunt, it seems to me, are in the habit
of receiving people who are not fit company for you. You are here with
the consent of your relations, I suppose?”
She began to tremble all over, and her eyes were fixed upon him with
all the haughtiness that she could at that moment muster up.
“May I ask you, Mr. St. Clare, by what right you place me under
cross-examination? I thought I was free to do as I pleased, and am old
enough to choose my friends without anybody’s consent, either that of
my relations or of yourself.”
Her tone was sharp and cutting. She was about to turn away. He took her
hand, she quickly withdrew it.
“Do stay a moment, pray. Forgive me if I have hurt you. But I take an
interest in you, I have heard so much about you from Vincent. I knew
you, in fact, before I had seen you. I looked upon you
somewhat—somewhat, if I may say it, as a little sister, just as I
thought of Vincent as my brother; and now I find you here, mixed with
people——”
“Thank you very much for your good intentions,” she resumed with icy
coldness, “but in future please to give expression to your brotherly
interest in a more proper fashion. You knew me before you had seen me,
it is possible. I have known you now for a week, and I cannot
understand how you dare to speak to me as if you were called upon to be
my guardian. I am much obliged to you for your solicitude, but I do not
need it.”
He made a movement of impatience, and once more prevented her from
going. She was still trembling with rage, but she stayed.
“Now do not be angry, pray,” he resumed appeasingly. “Perhaps I did
speak rather boldly; but don’t you think yourself that the company here
is not suited to you?”
“The acquaintances of my uncle and aunt may be mine as well, I should
imagine. In any case, it is a matter which does not concern you in the
least.”
“Why do you forbid me to take an interest in you?”
“Because you take advantage.”
“And is there no pardon for that when it is merely caused by a feeling
of sincere friendship?” he asked, and held out his hand.
“Oh, certainly,” she answered coldly, apparently without noticing his
hand. “But, in future, pray spare me your feelings of friendship. Too
much interest in one is sometimes annoying.”
Much hurt she turned away.
He remained alone on the terrace, and he saw her disappear among the
circus-riders and the Russian prince, the fair-haired lady, the two
drunken gentlemen, and the poetical count.